E.T. Colvin

[Dakota]

This isn't a rules post... it is more of an editorial on ASA JO FP.

As an exclusively JO FP umpire, it jumped out at me in the press release on the election of E.T. Colvin as ASA President that his background is exclusively men's slow pitch, and no mention was made in the press release of other programs. I certainly hope he gives JO FP his attention, too.

ASA FP is seeing a lot of competition from other sanctioning bodies and has to deal with the dominance (in talent and numbers) of SoCal and to a lesser extent Tx, which causes those regions to feel like they are owed more berths and less travel and causes other regions to avoid ASA Nationals in favor of the various "avoid California and claim you went to Nationals" bodies.

Girls JO FP must be addressed as a program with unique issues and problems. The imbroglio over bats is a good example of the JO FP program being put into turmoil over what is largely a SP issue.

U-trip and AFA are well run organizations who seem to be attracting a lot of disgruntled former ASA teams. Most of the top teams in this area carry multiple sanctions and will commit to Nationals weeks or even months before the quals for ASA Nats are settled. The state champion teams here at 12U through 16U are eschewing ASA Nationals on a regular basis to accept berths at AFA.

If these and other FP issues are not addressed agressively and effectively, ASA JO FP will no longer be the "given" sanction that all top travel teams will carry.

[Andy]

Tom - I am basically in the same boat you are, the great majority of my games are ASA JO fastpitch.

I acknowledge each of your points agree that they are valid. The one thing that you have to remember, however, is that for every ASA registered JO FP team, there are five or six or more ASA Slowpitch teams. Those numbers are guesses on my part, but I doubt that they too high.

The question then becomes: Which customer do you think ASA is going to apply the most attention and resources to?

I, too, think that ASA is slowly losing it's hold as "the" premier JO FP organization. If they do not start addressing it soon, ASA will be passed by the others.

However, I'm not holding my breath!

[Dukat]

I do not know if this will make you feel better or worse but I am from Columbus, MS (E.T.'s Hometown) and last year was the first year they even attempted JO Girls' FP here and they had to abandon it because they tried to do it after the JO Girl's SP season ended and there was not enough interest because all the girls who wanted to play FP were on U-Trip tournament teams and those playing SP went on to SP tournament ball so did not have time for FP. I have heard that they are going to try and do it differently this year with FP first but I have my doubts on if that will work either.

[IRISHMAFIA]

With all due respect, what the hell are you people talking about? Do you think the president does everything from an ivy tower?

The president has extremely limited authority and can do little without the Board of Directors.

Now, the general council is heavy in slow pitch representation. BTW, with the exception of Regions 4 & 6, the number of adult registered teams out number those of JO by more than 50,000 teams. Now you know there are not that many adult FP teams to make up that difference. Therefore, it would seem the representation numbers are justified.

Yet, even with those numbers, JO gets the priority at many meetings and conferences.

I don't think you have anything about which to worry.

[Dakota]

Originally posted by IRISHMAFIA
With all due respect, what the hell are you people talking about? Do you think the president does everything from an ivy tower? ... I don't think you have anything about which to worry.

I freely admit to being very uninformed as to the inner workings of ASA politics and administration.

However, I disagree that I don't have anything to worry about.

What I do know is that 4 or 5 years ago, "going to Nationals" here meant ASA, nothing else. Now, the only vestage of that left is at 10U (and for them it means the "regional nationals" - e.g. Northern Nationals) and 18U. In between, all of the contending 12U through 16U teams carry double or triple sanctions (ASA, AFA, and U-trip), and this year, if memory serves, NONE of these teams accepted berths at ASA Nationals, even though many qualified.

Why? Well, it is complicated, but a big factor is that they can "earn" a berth at U-trip or AFA early in the season with NQ tournaments held locally playing against regional teams. "Earn" for these bodies doesn't mean the same thing it does for ASA, but nonetheless, they can make their travel plans in June instead of scrambling to find some kind of flop house hotel within 50 miles of the ASA tournament, plus other travel arrangements, in the week to two between the State Tournament and Nationals. Besides, there is no guarantee they will even qualify at State. Other ASA NQs are not a dependable option due to the influx of SoCal teams in those (typically). So, the Northern Region's NQ is usually a mini-National tournament.

Another factor is, frankly, it is much more fun to finish high in a lower quality national than to go 3 and out or 2 and 2 and finish in the bottom half of the ASA A Nationals. Even though progress is being made on the competitiveness of local teams (a local 18U team came in second this year at "A" Nationals - still no Gold teams, yet, but this is progress!), the Snow Belt teams still have distinct disatvantages against Sun Belt teams in practice time and season length. A lot of effort locally is being put into "Dome Ball" seasons, but it is slow going due to the costs involved.

ASA has tried to address many of these issues.

The "regional Nationals" is a good step, but more needs to be done to compete with the "Avoid California and Get a Trophy" national tournaments put on by the likes of AFA. One of our local 16U teams came in fourth at the AFA National this year and did not play a single team from out of the midwest the entire tournament. (Some Sun Belt teams were there, but not very many.) Now, it is fair to argue that that is not a "true national" tournament, but the truth is the truth - that is the competition that ASA is facing with our upper midwest travel teams.

AFA is building, steadily, its local infrastructure. So far, their presence is mostly offering sanctioning and putting on NQ tournaments. Usually these tournaments are ASA sanctioned tournaments (in order to secure umpires), but AFA recognizes the winners and high placement teams as qualifying for their Nationals. This is also the way U-trip tends to operate locally in fast pitch.

In a few years, I look for teams to start dropping their ASA sanction once enough of an infrastrure is in place to allow teams to have a realistic season apart from ASA.

Some of the ASA issues locally are brought about by the state ASA Commissioner, who insists on running the entire program more like a B team system than a true travel team system, and again, the better teams and athletes are straining at the bit of this system, and looking for a way to break free. So far, ASA NHQ has stayed at arms length from this issue, saying it is a local problem, but it will have long term implications (none good) for ASA here if it is not addressed with the next couple of years.

I fully recognize the "minority" status of JO fast pitch for ASA. They would be foolish to not place SP as their highest priority.

However, if ASA does not address the errosion of strength in JO FP, they may find themselves facing a realistic challenge to their "National Governing Body" status (unlike the joke challenge of a year or so ago).

[CecilOne]

The same things are generally true for PONY. The other comment I hear frequently is the cost factor, with Virginia being a much cheaper trip then Oklahoma. Also, the eligibility rules seem to be looser, but I don't get into that.

[IRISHMAFIA]

And everything you mentioned has absolutely NOTHING to do with whom is the President of ASA.

There were numerous proposals to change the format, including an East/West or a Four-corner National Tournament format which was basically killed via a rejection by Legislative Committee chaired by Mr. Steve Monson.

A request for the suspension of the rules from the floor was made to introduce a piece of legislation which seemed to present a compromise. Unfortunately, Mr. Monson was chairing this portion of the general council meeting and before offering the motion to the general council insisted the purpose be raised. When told the purpose, the general council voted 53% to 47% to allow the suspension of the rules to discuss the matter. The only problem is that it requires 75% for approval. This was believed to be a direct result of a CA/TX voting block.

If you really want to know what I think the problem with JO ball is the priorities of the people running the teams. There is no longer that all-important national championship to be earned, but the number of games to be played and opportunities for them to be seen. And this was reflected by the proposed changes.

There were proposals to requires all players to require their PSAT/SAT scores or the team could not participate. So, personal choice and failure to provide such scores by any one player would ban participation by an entire team. There were numerous proposals to eliminate college players from JO ball.

There were also proposals to eliminate the automatic returning berths which would mean more teams would have to earn their way to Nationals.

Merely my opinion, but many of the problems aren't so much with ASA, but with the priorities of the people running the player's and team's associations. The past week, I've seen and heard many things that suggest to me that the ASA recognizes some of these things and are making alternative offers to make the system better, but since that doesn't necessarily aid the cause of those in regional power, they will never get by regardless of what is better for the game overall. BTW, a change must achieve two-thirds approval of the general council, a simple majority means nothing.

One thing I did notice is that the ASA folks do not want to get to the level of other associations and just start handing out berths on a whim and a favor. That is what will make ASA tournaments the most competitive and to be honest, that isn't the priority of all those involved.

Of course, this is just one persons opinion which should be taken with a grain of salt.

[Skahtboi]

Originally posted by IRISHMAFIA
Do you think the president does everything from an ivy tower?

MIke....how does this compare to an "ivory tower?"

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally posted by Skahtboi

MIke....how does this compare to an "ivory tower?"

Very good!!! Long week, but as you can see, I should have been wide awake when typing that statement

[azbigdawg]

Instead of just hoping that the new president will give attention to ALL aspects of softball, why dont you all do a wider range of softball? ASA is not just about JO fastpitch..If you limit yourself to certain areas, you limit your ability to grow as an umpire.

[Dakota]

Originally posted by azbigdawg
Instead of just hoping that the new president will give attention to ALL aspects of softball, why dont you all do a wider range of softball? ASA is not just about JO fastpitch..If you limit yourself to certain areas, you limit your ability to grow as an umpire.

I care about JO FP because my daughter plays. I call JO FP to help the local program and because I enjoy the game. Maybe someday I'll "branch out" as you say, but for now, my interest is JO FP.

My concern is not running out of games to call. After all, if the local FP teams go with AFA or whatever, I'll call AFA games.

My concern is for the future of ASA JO FP.

[azbigdawg]

I see where you are coming from... But I think that the Strength of the JO program is more of a local thing. If the local commisioner emphasizes it..It will succeed. Here in PHX we have the opposite. An awesome J.O. Program, but adult S.P. has fallen off to the point where we have NO metro tournament. (Both the current and the last local commisioners had daughters in the J.O. Programs) So it seems to be more of a local thing than national..just my thoughts

[TexBlue]

Actually, I have an amazingly less amount of knowledge of ASA politics than any of you guys. But, it seems to me, after reading the posts, you're saying that a lot of teams are going elsewhere to avoid the better teams. If this is the case, why not spend more time on improving the quality of the teams leaving, instead of worrying about the ones who already are good?

My daughter won 3 National titles (not ASA ) while she was playing. If we got whipped, we got whipped. I don't believe we ever once thought about what the governing bodies were going to do to make US more competitive. We thought that was always up to us. Eventually, we got to where we wanted to be.

I don't mean to sound judgemental at all, but it seems like the emphasis should be more on upgrading the quality of talent and coaching than worrying about whether a new President can get changes in effct to keep the less competitve teams going to ASA nationals. Please, please, I don't mean that in an insulting or mean way at all. But, reading from your post, it seems like that is how you are describing them, yourself.

[Skahtboi]

Welcome to the board, azbigdawg. You will soon get posts from others welcoming you with all kinds of annoying gifs in them!

As for branching out as an umpire, I used to call FP, SP, and even some baseball. I found that, as time went by, I had less and less time to myself or to spend with my family, therefore I became solely a FP umpire, as that is the game that I prefer to officiate. (And it still keeps me plenty busy from Feb. through Nov.)

[Dakota]

TexBlue, you misunderstand me. I don't intend to continue beating this political horse here, since this is not the forum to deal with it. However, I want to respond to your comments, and to one of Mike's comments.

Originally posted by TexBlue
But, it seems to me, after reading the posts, you're saying that a lot of teams are going elsewhere to avoid the better teams. ... I don't believe we ever once thought about what the governing bodies were going to do to make US more competitive. We thought that was always up to us. Eventually, we got to where we wanted to be.

The issue is a lot more complicated than that. It involves qualificating for ASA nationals (the regional NQ's not being "regional"), the timing of knowing IF you qualify (a mere week or 2 before nationals), the expense of ASA nationals given the distance and the last minute travel costs, and finally, after all that, not really having a shot at a top 20 finish.

The only reason I brought this topic up was that the press release on the new Pres was so SP myopic that it jumped out at me.

Originally posted by IRISHMAFIA If you really want to know what I think the problem with JO ball is the priorities of the people running the teams. There is no longer that all-important national championship to be earned, but the number of games to be played and opportunities for them to be seen.

Maybe so, but ASA needs to recognize reality. The ground has shifted underneath girls sports. Who cares if the Orange County Squeezers win the National Championship? Their parents, that's who. Travel teams are not community teams; they have no connection to anyone except their own organization. What do these parents care about (esp at 16U and up, but disturbingly, 14U and below also)?... exposure and a full ride Title IX.

ASA needs to recognize the needs and requirements of their customers. If exposure tournaments are more important than national championships, then provide them, ASA. What's the problem?